Great Barrington — What to do about Great Barrington’s dangerous downtown crosswalks? The question is surely as old as the first time motorized vehicles rambled down Main Street more than 100 years ago.
Earlier this year, the town hired BETA, a planning and engineering group based in Rhode Island, to examine a pair of key downtown crosswalks and recommend safety improvements.
The two crosswalks in question are at the intersection of Railroad and Main streets, and the so-called Rotary Way crosswalk that links the Rubiner’s building with the TD Bank building to the east.
BETA engineer Kien Y. Ho briefed the selectboard on his company’s work in identifying the hazards at the two walkways, and he laid out his recommendations for improvements. Ho offered both short-term and long-term options.
Ho described both crosswalks as “very, very long.” Most unsignaled crosswalks do not span four-lane roads, as Main Street does from the police station all the way north to Elm Street, where it reverts back to two lanes.
The crosswalk at Railroad Street is 65 feet long and the one farther north at Rubiner’s, where the road begins to narrow in preparation for its reversion to one lane at Elm Street, is 55 feet wide. Those two crosswalks Ho examined are also the only ones on Main Street from the police station to Elm Street that do not have signals, so walkers are especially vulnerable to collisions with vehicles.
See video below of Monday’s selectboard meeting. Fast forward to 1:31:45 for the presentation of Ho’s study of the two crosswalks:
At both locations, Ho recommended the installation of a rectangular rapid flashing beacon. The RRFB consists of a standard pole-mounted pedestrian crossing sign coupled with an LED strobe light bar. The lights are activated when pedestrians push a button four feet up the pole.
“At Railroad Street, there are four lanes and pavement markings in between,” Ho said. “This crosswalk needs some kind of pedestrian crossing lights, so that when someone crosses, cars should be able to know that there are people crossing at these two crosswalks.”
Ho pointed to other towns his firm has worked with to install strobe lights and medians, such as Lenox to the north and, to the east, Framingham in Middlesex County.
Ho also recommended the installation of brick pavers in order to provide a change of texture for the surface that would emphasize to motorists and pedestrians alike that they have entered a crosswalk. The brick-like surface could also be painted with reflective colors.
As for longer-term fixes, Ho recommended the installation of raised median strips, which Ho said would provide a “sort of refuge” for pedestrians. The medians would increase the costs of the project but would provide enhanced safety. Currently, there is nothing but small reboundable plastic pedestrian crossings signs.
Moreover, Ho explained, medians also serve as a traffic-calming feature, because they have “a narrowing effect, so that might slow cars down.”
Board Chair Steve Bannon recalled that when Main Street was undergoing a $6 million reconstruction project from 2014 to 2016, the state Department of Transportation told the town it did not allow RRFB lights on its highways.
But Ho told him that MassDOT had that authority since it was paying for $5 million of the cost. That project is completed, so the crosswalk safety feature would be at the town’s expense and would not require MassDOT’s permission. Route 7 is actually a town road between the National Grid building and the Brown Bridge to the north.
Speaking as a citizen, Great Barrington attorney Charlie Ferris told the board his father-in-law, who was following all the rules for using the crosswalk, was struck and run over by a vehicle at the Railroad Street crosswalk roughly 20 years ago. The crash broke several bones and he was never able to walk without a cane again.
“We’ve all seen a lot of near misses,” Ferris said. “I urge the town to add as many safety precautions as they can.”
In the last few years alone there have been several incidents in South County. In May 2016, a motorist hit two women, an 11-month-old baby girl in a stroller and a 3-year-old girl as the group crossed Main Street in the crosswalk near the Railroad Street intersection.
Five years ago, a man in a motorized scooter sustained critical injuries when he was struck by a vehicle near a crosswalk just south of the Great Barrington Bagel shop. That crosswalk does have signs with light beacons on both sides of the road. In August 2019, a skateboarding teen suffered non-life-threatening injuries after he was hit by a car at the Railroad Street crosswalk.
And in 2017, farther to the south in Sheffield, a beloved town woman was struck and killed in the Main Street crosswalk leading to the Bushnell Sage Library. The driver was later convicted of negligent homicide.
“I think this is a number-one issue with the town and I adamantly feel we should get on top of this sooner rather than later,” said board member Leigh Davis.
The board will take up the matter at a later meeting.
